Celebration of Spring and Saying Goodbye to Winter

This past week was BLINI week!!! You see in the pic just below that a blini is a pancake. Nothing big happened this week until the weekend!! We all went to a small festal on Saturday and then to a very big celebration on Sunday!!! It’s called Maslenitsa, it’s a celebration of spring and saying goodbye to winter!

Blini (pancakes) stacked high.

This is the coordinator for us! she loves to dance.

The burning of winter

We are on the river that separates Peter and Paul fortress from the rest of Russia! My head teacher slipped!!

Dancing

Traditional Russian Dancing

Me and Reagan on the ice!!! scary!!!

Women’s Day!!! and Church of Spilled Blood!

Today was Women’s Day!!! It’s kind of like Mother’s Day back home but all girls get flowers!

We didn't have to teach today so we decided that we would go on an adventure! Ha ha. We picked a random metro stop and went to see what there was to look at or do! We got off and started walking and found there was nothing to do on this metro stop! ...other than the Galleria, the biggest mall I have ever seen! It has 5 floors and it goes on forever! We went shopping for a little bit! I got bright pink pants!!! SO cute!

After the mall me and Reagan decided we were going to go home (we kind of wanted to just be by ourselves) so we left and as we got back on the metro we decided we would go to the Church of Spilled Blood! We called Sam and asked if she wanted to come and so it turned out to be a group outing! Not bad but not exactly what we had in mind! But it all turned out OK after all!

We all went and it was perfect outside! The sun was out and the wind cooled down! When you walk into the church your mouth drops open! There is not a single spot on the wall that is bare! There are mosaics everywhere! My Favorite is the picture that told a story and they all testified of Christ! It’s amazing to see art from years and decades ago! After our outing on are way home it started to get really windy. Not long after that we looked out the window and there was a blizzard! My very first blizzard ever!

It was  a great Women’s day!!!

We did not know that we all matched! It was the best day ever!

My Favorite

Here are some videos of the church of spilled blood! Just so you can see the beauty!!

Blini and Vacation Planning

Hey everyone!!

This last week has been so crazy!!! Teaching takes up a lot of my time so there is not much time to write. I’ll try and be better. 

This last week Sveta taught me how to make blini which is a Russian crepe. They were so good!! There is a weeklong celebration where all you eat is blini. I can’t wait!! It’s getting so cold, snow is not falling but the wind is just so bitter! I miss my Arizona sun!!

We have been planning booking our vacations!! I think about the amount of time we have spent planning and making arrangements and it seems like three times the amount of time we will actually spend on the vacation!! Ha ha. Last night we were up till 2 in the morning trying to book the 4 day long vacation! There was a point, I think about 11 o'clock when Jessie, Sam, and I broke down into a hysterical laugh and cried at the same time!!! Talk about crazy and funny!! It’s one of those moments I will never forget it!